Baseball helmets are commonly used and are required for league play, as a hard thrown baseball pitch or bat deflected ball striking a batter's head may cause injury and even death. While no batter's helmet may totally prevent head injuries, they can reduce the severity of the injury and in many cases prevent injury. Baseball batters' helmets use a shell with a crown portion, a forwardly projecting bill and rigid earflaps extending downwardly and forwardly to protect the sides of the head. Some helmets are fitted with additional face protectors, particularly where the player may be prone to re-injury from being struck on the side of the face with a pitched ball.
Helmets are available in different sizes and may be purchased by the player or assigned by a team to fit a certain player. Other helmets may be adjusted to particular head sizes by the use of removable and replaceable pads within a standard size of helmet shell. While it is common in professional or semi-professional play, or at college or occasionally even at high school level, to have players with assigned helmets, for youth leagues such as Little League, the players seldom have individually sized helmets, and tile helmets are often too floppy and tend to fall down over the eyes of the wearer. The helmets also often fall off during base running, leaving the runner vulnerable to head injury if hit by a ball thrown to the baseman.
The present invention is designed to alleviate the above common problems and provides a helmet which automatically adjusts and grips a wearer's head, within a broad size range, such as 6-3/8 to 7-1/2. There are no pads to remove and replace to adjust size. There is no designated size of the helmet to which the batter must pay attention, and the batter simply picks up a helmet and places it on his head. This is a "one size fits all" helmet, does not flop down over the eyes of the batter and stays on during base running.